Pew: Reading news on Facebook mostly incidental
- About 30%25 of adults have seen news on Facebook%2C but most on the site for other reasons
- Just 38%25 of Facebook news consumers who are avid news followers say Facebook is important news source
- 64%25 of Facebook news consumers say they sometimes click on news links
Facebook's ambition to be a go-to news source may need some work.
A vast majority of U.S. adults who have read news from Facebook - 78% - say they've logged on to the popular social networking site for other reasons, such as browsing photos, says a study by the Pew Research Center released Thursday.
Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults use Facebook, and half of them have seen news on the site, says the report, completed in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. That means about 30% of U.S. adults are considered "Facebook news consumers," says the report, which queried more than 5,000 adults.
"People go to Facebook to share personal moments – and they discover the news almost incidentally," says Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Center's director of journalism research. "The serendipitous nature of news on Facebook may actually increase its importance as a source of news and information, especially among those who do not follow the news closely."
Those who don't follow news regularly were more likely to deem Facebook as an "important' news source. Just 38% of Facebook news consumers who say they follow the news "all" or "most of the time" describe Facebook as an important news outlet. For those who follow the news just "some of the time" or less, it was 47%.
Other findings:
* Young people (18- to 29- year-olds) account for about a third (34%) of Facebook news consumers.
* 42% Facebook news consumers often watch local television news, but only 21% of often read print newspapers.
* About half (49%) of Facebook news consumers regularly get news on six or more different topics. Entertainment news is the most popular topic.
* 64% of Facebook news consumers say they at least sometimes click on news links, while 43% post or share links.
* About a third of Facebook news consumers say they prefer news that shares their own point of view, a slightly higher share than the 27% of U.S. adults who say the same.